Issue Features

Government is committed to ‘Make in India’, but for critical projects and immediate requirements, we will import. Government needs to sense the strategic requirements and is very clear that ‘Make in India’ is a long-term initiative.

This is the first time that India would be negotiating a major defence deal with France on government-to-government basis, though the French Government has played a major role in all previous defence acquisitions

The Indian Air Force (IAF) may be forced to junk its transitional training for fighter pilots because of HAL’s continuing failure to deliver its Sitara intermediate jet trainer (IJT) which was sanctioned in 1999 but still cannot stall-and-spin, a critical manoeuvre to transform cadets into top-gun fighter pilots. It teaches them how to handle emergencies, hold their nerve and retrieve their planes from a spin, as was depicted in Shashi Kapoor’s film Vijeta of the early 1980s.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation, the National Aerospace Laboratories and the production agency the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited function practically in silos with no synergy amongst them